The canadian naval question. Addresses delivered by Clive Phillipps-Wolley, F.R.C.S., Vice-President Navy League

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The EDITH and LORNE PIERCE
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ADDRESSES DELIVERED

VICE-PRESIDENT NAVY LEAGUE

TORONTO :

ILLIAM BRIGGS
1910

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INTRODUCTION

The writer of the addresses which are herewith sub-
mitted to the public, is, and has been for some years,
actively interested in the work of the Navy League
upon the West Coast of Canada.

His experience has been that there is no lack of
interest in the naval defence of the Empire, but that
there is a considerable lack of information, and that
it is necessary to explain to busy men living at any
distance from the sea the vital importance of sea
power to them personally, as the basis of that Empire
to which they belong, and as an insurance of those
businesses upon which they depend for their pros-
perity.

A beneficent idiot told the writer that in Ontario he
would find the farmers absolutely indifferent upon the
subject, or even hostile to naval contribution in any
form.

Doubting the accuracy of this statement, the writer
ventured to take a trip through Ontario, encouraged
thereto by the advice of the Navy League at home, the
request of his own energetic Committee in Victoria
Esquimalt, and the invitations of certain branch
leagues in Winnipeg, Toronto and other Eastern
cities.

The result of the tour was what might have been
expected. The men he met in Eastern Canada were a
busy, contented lot of farmers, whose necessaries seem
to have fallen fifty per cent, in cost in the last twenty
years, whilst the price obtainable for the things they
produce has doubled, but the well-cultivated farms,
with their red brick homesteads, and trim fields, the

3

4 Introduction.

pretty, prosperous " county towns " and villages, are
owned1 by men in whom the spirit of loyalty and love
of the Empire is as strong as it is anywhere in the
world.

As some return for their large-hearted hospitality,
and because they asked him to do so, the writer has
cast his addresses into a more permanent form, endea-
vouring to set out the arguments which support his
case without any of that party bias which is almost the
only curse of Canada.

If he has succeeded in any degree in demonstrating
the reality of the menace to Britain's supremacy at
sea, the vital interest which Canada has in the main-
tenance of that supremacy, and the importance of the
Empire's sea power to every farmer and tradesman
in the Dominion, he will be amply repaid for his
trouble.

There are, of course, better and more authoritative
publications upon every subject dealt with in these
pages, from which the writer has borrowed freely,
but it is believed that none of them are written from
a purely Canadian standpoint, and that, therefore, this
pamphlet, inadequate as it undoubtedly is, will be of
some assistance to those who wish to help in the
making of Public Opinion as it affects the Navy.

It will at least prove to our friends in the East that
their Western brethren want to work with them for
the good of Britain's greatest Dominion, and especially
those of this Province, in which every man, from the
Premier to the youngest school child, is saturated with
a belief in the dear old Mother Country, is unswerv-
ingly loyal to British connection, and firm in the faith
in Canada's future.

The expenses of this pamphlet are borne by its
author, and every cent of profit made from it (if any)
will be put back into Mr. Briggs' hands for the pur-
chase of more copies to be circulated gratuitously in
different parts of the Dominion.

Introduction. 5

To those who wish this effort well, the writer says,
" Lend the copies you buy as widely as possible, and
found in every town a branch of the Navy League."

A request to the undersigned for information as to
the best way to do this will receive prompt attention.

Clive Philupps-WolIvKy,

Vice-President Navy League, and President of
Victoria and Bsqnimalt Branch of the Navy
League in Canada.

Victoria, B.C., November 16th, 1910.

AN INTERPRETATION CLAUSE

An Act of Parliament always contains immediately
after the title an interpretation clause, having read
which you know, or ought to know, precisely what the
Act is dealing with, and because there is sometimes
an uncertainty in men's minds as to the exact value
attached by individual writers to particular words, I
propose to follow the example of the Acts and
attempt to define to my readers and myself what
I mean by one or two of the most important words
which I shall use.

Of these, the first and most important is the word
Empire.

If you look in any of the standard dictionaries of
the day you will find Empire defined as "the dominions
of an Emperor, usually including several nations or
nationalities," and we must accept this as an accurate
definition of the word as far as it goes.

But words are only symbols of things, and the sym-
bols must grow as those things grow which they rep-
resent, and that British Empire to which I shall refer
from time to time is distinctly one of those things
which have grown.

Perhaps the dictionary definition may do for some
Empires ; certainly it will not do for ours.

If an Empire meant only the geographical limits of
one man's rule it would not matter much, at any rate
to the world as a whole : its continued existence might
be of importance to the Emperor who ruled it and to
the people he ruled, but not to God or to the world.

Our Empire stands on another footing. It is of

6

The Canadian Naval Question. 7

importance, I believe, even in God's sight, and its con-
tinued existence of first importance to the world at
large.

To me at least it seems that the British Empire, our
Empire, is the outward visible expression of the high-
est ideals of that race loosely spoken of as Anglo-
Saxon.

To put my thought quite simply, I believe that the
British Empire is the Life's Work of the British race ;
the express image of the British ideal; the monument
to the mighty dead of our own kin: the great trust of
the men of our own day ; the hope of humanity in the
future ; the very best thing that we have been able to
devise in over a thousand years of work for the better-
ment of man, to insure a fair field for the development
of the individual and perfect fair play for rich and
poor, weak and strong alike.

I believe that God created the world; I believe that
Christ came to teach the world, and I believe that the
British Empire exists to spread Christ's doctrines and
to illustrate them, even though imperfectly, by its
practice, and here I lay the foundation of my plea on
the behalf of the Navy League, whose work it is to
secure the maintenance of that supremacy at sea upon
which the continued power of the British Empire
depends.

If there be no great fallacy in this creed, the suprem-
acy and continued activity of the British Empire is not
only a condition that we should work for, but one for
which the whole world should pray.

If my statement of the case for Britain is inac-
curate; if or when She ceases to deserve Her proudest
title, Fidei Defensor, there will no longer be any good
cause why She should be the greatest power on earth.

Let us examine Her history to establish the claim
which I have put forward for Her.

Britain has been built as the coral reefs are built,
by millions upon millions of little lives, by millions

8 The: Canadian Naval Question.

upon millions of men's minds, millions upon millions
of human souls, and every life and mind and1 soul of
them British, so that to-day this Empire of Britain is
actually a live thing, having a body which is the body
of our race, a mind which is the matured mind of the
British people from their birth until to-day, and a soul
taught and chastened by the labours and trials, the mis-
takes and achievements of more than a thousand years,
and this Empire* thus built, stands to-day, even as the
coral reef stands, a barrier between the destructive
waves of the world's hungry sea, and the lands and
waters of peace, between greed- and anarchy and the
blessings of constitutional government.

Let us try to see what the British ideal is, what are
the main principles of those innumerable men and
women, of whose souls, minds and bodies this British
Empire has been built.

I am prepared to admit that our Empire has its
faults; has had them in the past; has them in the
present, and will have them in the future. That is to
admit that this Empire is only an earthly kingdom. A
faultless Empire would be the Kingdom of Heaven.

But I claim that there is none other like Her. I claim
that the basis of Britain's creed is the basis of Her
Master's; that service and self-sacrifice are the lessons
which She lives to teach by Her example ; that the law
of Her is the law of fair play, and that Her gift to
man is the gift of ordered liberty.

Is my boast a vain one? Ivook back in the book on
which we built, and you will find as its central figure a
Christ upon a Cross ; you will read that " greater love
hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his
friends " and that " the greatest amongst you shall be
servant of all."

Surely self-sacrifice and service are amongst the
keynotes of Christ's teaching, and as surely have we,
in some measure and at an infinite distance, followed
in His footsteps.

We began haltingly perhaps with the teachings of

The Canadian Naval Question. 9

chivalry, and, in our early days, it was only the best
and noblest of our fighting men who fought for their
God, for their King, for their fair ladies, and for fame.

Later they realized that fame smacked too much of
price ; Christ's teachings became more powerful than
Odin's ; the whole nation fell in love with what was, at
first, only the soldiers' creed; new dangers, disease
mental and bodily, bad and unequal laws and class
tyranny, were seen to be more terrible foes and there-
fore more attractive to noble spirits, than such mere
physical foes as Arthur's knights had fought, and
therefore Alfred the King laboured that he might
teach when he was not leading in battle ; therefore, the
wandering friars arose, starving themselves that they
might feed others with the Bread of Life; therefore,
the Barons wrung that first measure of universal fair
play from a king at Runnymede ; therefore, genera-
tion after generation, merchants and prentices
struggled for civic freedom; therefore, year by year,
whilst half -taught politicians libel them, the best brains
and most gallant hearts of Britain labour silently in
India and Egypt and elsewhere to give peace and pros-
perity to conquered peoples ; therefore, Lord Shaftes-
bury and such as he gave their lives and brilliant gifts
to the ragged poor, the lunatics, the children and
women in factories and mines, yea even to the dumb
beasts, and from one end of the British Empire to the
other it is acknowledged, not that the labourer is
worthy of his hire, but that for our noblest, the labour
is its own sufficient reward, and that amongst the
children of the British Empire the measure of a man's
service is the measure of his honour.

From Alfred to Victoria the law has remained
unaltered, "Who rules must serve."

At the passing of our mighty dead in 1901 and 1910
we opened our eyes and saw that the ideal of our race
had been realized; that our greatest glory had been
written in royal purple across the length and breadth
of our Empire. The wording of it was "Ich Dien,"

io The Canadian Naval Question.

and the translation of it, "If any man desire to be
first he shall be servant of all."

This is the first principle of the British Empire.

Alongside of, and inseparable from, this principle
of service and self-sacrifice has grown another, the
yeoman's Law of Fair Play.

This is no knightly ideal, no rule of a class, no craze
of an age. It is the very spirit and essence of Eng-
land, taught and held as firmly in her playing fields
and prize ring as in her Parliament. It is so English
that at the very mention of the dear words the narrow
Islands come vividly before our eyes, and without Mr.
Kipling's . "leaves of oak and ash and thorn" the
miracle is worked, and we can see the Thames
meadows and primrosed hedgerows, the glades of
daffodils, and those red farmsteads nestling amongst
their golden ricks from which came the sturdy apostles
of fair play.

And this principle of fair play is the root from
which most of Britain's glory has grown.

It is because Britons have preached fair play and
practised it, that the bitterness between class and class
has largely disappeared ; that the way to the top is open
to brains and courage and work; that men in the
British Empire may think for themselves and pray as
they please; that Britain's many churches are slowly
uniting for the service of the universal God; that she
has spent Her blood and treasure for the freedom of
the slave and in relief of the oppressed; that British
women enjoy a dignity and esteem accorded to their
sex in no other country; that the Mother of Nations
has been able to colonize and administrate as neither
Rome nor any Empire of modern times has ever done.

It is in this spirit of fair play that She will some day
listen to Her Dominions beyond the sea, when they
who have helped to build and will help to maintain
plead for representation in their own Imperial House.

The Canadian Naval Question. ii

Because such principles as these are Hers, the gift
that Britain has offered to the world is the priceless
gift of ordered liberty and self-government, not the
license of a mad democracy to tear down and destroy,
to do as every man pleases to his own detriment and
the destruction of his neighbour; but to do as he
pleases with himself and his belongings, so long as in
so doing he does no harm to another.

I have no space in which to submit the vast mass of
evidence that might be produced to prove that the very
highest form of ordered liberty has been Britain's gift
to the world. Evidence of this encompasses us. The
very present existence of the Empire is a proof of it ;
the envy of all other nations affirms it; the self-gov-
erning Colonies are examples of it ; Britain's free press,
Her independent voters, Her million refugees from
less happy lands, proclaim the fact, and the Sea-ways
of the World, of which She is the mistress, wide open
and safe for the world's traders, establish my conten-
tion beyond the possibility of dispute.

I will rather look for some argument which a pos-
sible enemy may use against me, than seek to strength-
en a position already impregnable, but I can find only
one such argument, one which seems to have been used
against Mr. Robert Blatchford, and by him ably
refuted.

Our adversaries tell us that Britain got Her Empire
by robbery, and that it is Her duty to give back what
She has stolen from India, Australia, New Zealand
and the aborigines of Canada.

I have not claimed for Britain that She was without
sin. In Her early days She was no doubt something
of a Sea robber. The survival of the fittest was the
law then, as it is now, and the very question I wish to
put to the opponents of the Navy League's crusade is,
"In the interest of the world, which Empire is fittest to
survive?"

As Mr. Blatchford points out, in a pamphlet which

12 The Canadian Naval Question.

should be part of every Navy Leaguer's library, there
are practically no aborigines to whom we could give
back Canada or Australia; there are no Maories to
whom we can return New Zealand, and if we gave
back India to the natives they could not hold it against
Russia, and still less could they govern it themselves
so as to ensure as much general happiness and well-
being as the inhabitants of India now enjoy.

The many weak would again become the prey of the
strong fighting races, and they in turn would destroy
each other.

And if we are not to give back our dependencies to
their original owners, to whom are we to give them?

To Russia? Think of the Caucasus and its present
condition. To Germany ? Did you ever know a Ger-
man settler in Canada who did not call himself Cana-
dian, or could you find one to-day who would not
rather live under our administration of British law
than under the military autocracy of Germany We
settle our strikes by arbitration ; in Berlin they settle
them with sabres.

To the United States of America? Do not our new
citizens from south of our line proclaim openly that
they prefer our institutions to their own ; a law which
is absolute to laws made to be evaded; the rule of fair
play to the prevailing power of the dollar?

Shall we hand them back to France? Nay, there is
no France left such as the men of Montcalm's time
loved. Our own French citizens cling to a dim and
glorious memory, but the reality is as dead as Imperial
Rome. The France of Faith, the France of Chivalry,
is surely not the France of to-day. Probably the
real France still lives in the hearts and long memories
of French Canada and there only.

Think of any colonizing power in the world, and if
you can find one which will compare favorably with
your own Empire as an administrator of alien races,
let our dependencies and colonies be given to that

The: Canadian Naval Question. 13

power, but if not, then for the world's peace and for
the happiness of humanity agree that the continued
supremacy of the British Empire is essential to the
well-being of man, and therefore in your eyes worth
working for.

That Empire rests upon the British Navy.

SEA POWER

Sea power is the basis of the corporate existence of
the British Empire.

Upon the truth of this axiom, this established prin-
ciple, depends the whole force of the Navy League's
appeal to Canada, and for that reason it is my duty to
show, not only what sea power means to us, but that
Canada is and must be an integral portion of the
British Empire.

Let me deal first with the importance of sea power.

After all, and in spite of the talk of humanitarians
and anti-militarists, the Court of Might is still the last
court of appeal upon earth, and the might of Britain
is on the seas and not on the land.

The best conceivable laws for the protection of the
weak may be made by the best and most intelligent
people in the world, but as against the worst and least
intelligent people in the world these can, in the last
event, only be enforced by that symbol of might, the
policeman.

The other great nations of Europe are land forces ;
their boundaries are contiguous to those of their
neighbours ; it is from the land that they can attack
or be attacked.

14 The Canadian Naval Question.

But England is moated by the sea, and the exten-
sions of England, her Dominions, her Colonies, her
dependencies, are separated from her and connected to
her by the sea and the sea only.

Germany may march an army into France, Russia
one into Asia, France into Italy, but no one can march
into England. He must sail or steam. The British
Isles, which are still the heart of the Empire, have
nothing to fear from a land attack, but the sea, which
was their road to expansion and wealth, if insuffi-
ciently guarded, may still be the road over which may
come their ruin.

And it must be borne in mind that when the Heart
stops beating the Limbs die ; when the market has been
destroyed it will be no use to ship wheat to it; it will
be no good for the Middle West to go on growing
more wheat than she wants for her own consumption.
It will be no good to call upon London for the flotation
of our bonds, for money for our development, when,
the seaways having been cut or closed, London has
been starved to death.

The land powers pay for their safety and prosperity
by maintaining vast armies, in which the whole man-
hood of their nations serve. We, more shame to us,
object to such universal service, and have, in conse-
quence, an army unsurpassed perhaps in quality, but
almost negligible in quantity.

Therefore, whilst it would be to our immense ad-
vantage as a nation, and even as individuals, to adopt
the continental system of universal service, it is im-
perative in our own self-defence that we should have
an overwhelmingly powerful navy.

We must play or pay. We cannot escape service,
either in person or by proxy, and if we will not serve
our own people, that is ourselves, we shall be com-
pelled when conquered to serve others.

Look back for a moment upon our history. We
are a sea-born people. The component parts of which

The: Canadian Naval Question. 15

we are made came to us by the sea. They were sea
rovers, sea robbers if you wish, finding safety and
wealth where others found death and disaster. "Foes
were they," sang an old Roman poet, "fierce beyond
other foes and cunning as they were fierce, the sea
was their school of war and the storm their friend;
they were sea wolves who lived upon the pillage of
the world."

Later we became adventurers upon the deep, finding
new lands and colonizing them, that is to say, exploit-
ing them for our own good and not a little for the
good of those who dwelt in them. Later we became
sea traders, and we are now the ocean carriers of the
world. The business of the ocean carrier has made
much of Britain's wealth, and it is this business which
still offers us exceeding great reward, and to none of
us greater than to those who live upon the Pacific sea-
board, fronting the vast markets of 'Asia.

The power and wealth of Britain was caused mainly
by Her colonial expansion, and that colonial expansion
was only made possible by Her sea power.

The seas are the highways of the world, and having
acquired the mastery of them we were able to go out
from our islands like bees from a hive, to gather the
riches of all lands, and when the hive was over-
crowded, to settle our swarms in such places as best
suited us ; we were able to gather the varied produce
of many countries and bring it back to our own, to be
there manufactured into a thousand useful forms,
which we shipped again to be sold for our benefit at
the other ends of the earth, thereby not only adding to
our national wealth, but ensuring to our home-staying
folk an abundance of remunerative employment.

We did more than this. Other nations were con-
tent to be mere robbers, taking from other lands such
wealth as was ready made, gold and silver and the
like, but we, being by temperament traders, saw the
possibilities of greater production in the lands we

16 The Canadian Naval Question.

visited, and, for our own, benefit, established and en-
couraged the productive processes of those lands,
thereby adding to their wealth and to ours.

The results of these methods have been that Britain,
as a whole, is not only the richest, but the most widely
scattered Empire upon earth, and the sea from which
it grew is the only bond which binds the scattered
Empire together.

Not only its wealth, but its very life depends upon
the unimpeded interchange of those commodities which
the component parts of it produce, and therefore the
absolute command of the sea, the only bond between
the parts, the only duct by which the produce and the
help of the one can reach the others, is essential to
Britain's continued existence.

I will not be a Pharisee, as I should be if I, as an
Englishman, pretended that the welfare of the rest
of the world was my first consideration. Quite frank-
ly, I believe in the duty of self-preservation, but it is
none the less true that it is best for the world as a
whole that Britain should remain Mistress of the Seas,
or, at least, that some great trader should be their
mistress, and there is no other except Britain, unless
it be Her eldest son on the American continent, and He
at present is hardly in the shipping business.

As long as a trader holds the seas he will keep peace
upon them and keep their ways open for commerce.
Peace is essential to a trader's success ; to a conqueror,
the seas are merely means to bring his forces to bear
upon those he would conquer.

Let us ask Sir Vincent Howard, one of our national
auditors, to take down that map of the world which is
our ledger and show us where we stand as regards this
question of sea power.

As I read his report, he tells us that steam, being the
motive power of men of war, and steam dependent
upon coal, and the coaling stations for the most part
in the hands of Britain, the sea ways of the world are
ours. He illustrates the position thus :

Tut Canadian Navai, Question. 17

If a German from the Baltic or a Frenchman from
the Channel wants to visit China he must needs coal
at Gibraltar by our leave ; he must coal at Port Said by
our leave; at Aden by our leave; at Colombo by our
leave; at Singapore by our leave; at Hong Kong by
our leave; whilst, whether he returns by the Cape of
Good Hope or by Cape Horn, he is just as much at
our mercy.

A man-of-war cannot steam for more than three
thousand miles at speed without recoaling, and foreign
ships cannot recoal without our permission. Neither
can they repair without coming to our ocean repair
shops. They cannot enter or leave the Mediterranean
unless Britain sets the Atlantic gate open ; they cannot
enter or leave the Red Sea unless we give them leave,
or the China Sea unless our Britain at Singapore and
Hong Kong says " Pass, friend."

Gates, guns, motive power are ours ; the world's
ocean ways are ours. These are some of the things
which I am pleading with you to retain.

And Sir Vincent Howard might have added that
most of the white man's land in the world (by which
I mean land suited to the requirements of the white
races) is ours, and this is not only the greatest asset
of a growing nation, but the greatest temptation to
any other growing nation, strong enough to seize it.

During that hundred years of war, when all the
nations of Europe were fighting for supremacy, all of
them, with one exception, devoted themselves to the
creation or maintenance of great land forces. England
alone, seeing Her opportunity, steadily fostered Her
mercantile marine and built up that navy which was
necessary for its protection.

The result was, in the event, that the nation which
was in reality most mobile, which could concentrate
its forces in the shortest time on any given point, which
could blockade and confine the forces of its foe, which
could follow and feed its armies with food, ammuni-

18 The Canadian Naval Question.

tion and fresh troops, and could starve its enemies by
closing their trade routes, that nation in a word which
possessed the sea power, made herself the greatest and
richest nation in the world.

For the purposes of a short address upon sea power
I am trying to show to you the salient points in the
works of other men, but you ought to read for your-
selves at length such works as Mahan's " Influence of
Sea Power upon History " and Wood's " Fight for
Canada."

If you have no time to do this, let me ask you to
consider one illustration of sea power in war.

If you were asked what it was that made Canada
British, you would probably answer that it was the
taking of Quebec by Wolfe, and you would be partly
right. Wolfe's magnificent landing party did take
Quebec, but the navy under Saunders which landed
that party, covered its operations, drew off the French
in different direction's at the time of the landing,
patrolled the St. Lawrence, and above all, blockaded
the ports of France so that no provisions, no munition
of war, no reinforcements could reach Montcalm, that
navy, I say, alone made Wolfe's success possible, and
deserves half the glory of it.

Whilst Wolfe's army could be kept supplied, Mont-
calm's army was starved, because Britain, having com-
mand of the seas, blockaded the ports of France, and
whilst Montcalm's men hurried laboriously from point
to point over land to meet each feigned landing, the
British shipping in the river gave Wolfe the chance of
concentrating his own troops rapidly and secretly upon
the unguarded heart of his enemy's position.

That in a nutshell is the story of Quebec, and it
illustrates excellently the advantages of sea power in
war.

A comparatively small nation which can concentrate
its whole force rapidly upon any given portion of the
power of a far greater nation, may hope to overcome

The Canadian Naval Question. 19

that nation in detail, and sea power is the only means
by which such concentration and mobility can be
attained.

It should be remembered, in connection with the
taking of Quebec, that at that time Britain was' at war
all over the world; that France threatened Her with
invasion, and that this distant victory, possible only
to a nation whose true fighting ring is the sea, warded
off the invasion and turned the balance in Her favour
for the next hundred years.

Let me come back to my original thesis, that sea
power is the basis of the corporate existence of
Britain.

To live a man must make a living, so must a nation,
and Britain makes Her living by trade.

The English working-man lives by working up raw
material into manufactured goods and exchanging
them for food. We also, in the Dominion, are be-
ginning to manufacture, but we live principally by pro-
ducing food and shipping that and certain raw material
to others.

Without the command of the sea the English work-
ing-man could get neither raw material nor food. He
could not therefore manufacture, he could not live.

Without the command of the seas, we in this
Dominion could not reach our markets, and though
we might not starve physically, we should financially.

England is dependent upon over-seas sources for
three-fourths of Her total bread supply and half Her
meat. Canada is dependent upon the old country for
most of the capital with which She is developing this
country, and Her over-seas trade may be estimated
from the fact that She has two hundred million dollars'
worth of wealth in one form or another upon the high
seas.

England's food supply and bank account depend
upon the maintenance of Her sea power, as does at any
rate your bank account.

i
20 The Canadian Naval Question.

But that is not the worst of it.

Alone neither you Canadians nor any other of the
great Dominions, the great segregated swarms from
the Anglo-Saxon hive, can as yet stand. If that need
proof I will prove it later on.

Alone it is doubtful whether the Old Mother of us
all can continue the struggle against other nations with
more man-power and greater potentialities of wealth
than Herself, but united She and Her children can
snap their fingers at the rest of the world and con-
tinue to dominate it in peace.

Britain is not like the great European nations. They
are concrete, united in growth. We sever as we grow,
and the only bond which continues to unite us is the
sea. Cut that bond and the whole Empire falls to
pieces. It is to preserve that bond that it is essential
that Britain should retain Her sea power.

Her Fleet is Britain's all in all, Her answer to the
threat of great continental armies; the one possible
protector of the sea links binding together a whole
which, if divided, would perish; the only insurance of
Her vast wealth and your children's heritage.

WHAT IS A NAVY LEAGUE?

I have to define one more term, and then I shall
have finished my interpretation clause.

The first questions asked of such men as myself are,
"What is a Navy League? What does it do? What
has your league done?*'

I answer in this way :

Most white men's countries to-day are democratic,
all tend to become more so, and in all democratic
countries the greatest power is Public Opinion,

The; Canadian Naval Question. 21

In some countries, and especially in ours, the most
vital question dealt with by public opinion, is the main-
tenance of the national sea power. A Navy League is
the instrument formed by a combination of energetic
and patriotic citizens of all parties, for the making of
public opinion as it affects the navy and the mainten-
ance of national sea power.

The people, irrespective of party, make the Navy
League; the Navy League makes public opinion, and
Public Opinion endeavours to make the navy such as
the needs of the nation require.

Britain depends absolutely, under God, upon the
maintenance of Her supremacy at sea, wherefore the
British Navy Leagues seek to convince Britain's people
that their first duty, at any cost, is to maintain an in-
vincible navy.

Under ordinary circumstances, and in comparatively
unimportant matters, it has become the fashion to
divide the educators and representatives of public
opinion into two classes, the Ins and the Outs, and men
vote and teach as they belong to one or other of the
great Parties.

But the good sense of all truly patriotic and intelli-
gent men is beginning to discover that there are ques-
tions of such vital importance to their country that
upon them there can be no division of opinion; that
as regards them no man can afford to be for a party ;
that as regards them, all men must be for the State,
and this question of the maintenance of Britain's naval
supremacy being one of these, the first by-law of a
British Navy League is, that it should be above parties,
absolutely non-partisan.

However honest men may be, this position is fraught
with difficulties, and those who adhere to it most
honestly cannot hope to escape reproach, except from
those who are themselves absolutely honest and careful
judges, for it must be that one or other of the parties,
each probably in turn, will seem to err against the best

22 The; Canadian Naval, Question..

interests of the navy, so that each in turn may become
the object of the Navy League's attack, and yet that
attack will not be partisan, though it tells against the
party attacked, and in favour of its opponents.

For instance, here in Canada, a Navy League may
be heartily in favour of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's policy
for the creation of a Canadian navy, fostering a naval
spirit, and encouraging the shipbuilding industry in
Canada, and yet be a bitter opponent of the party
which suggests that the part (Canada) may be at peace
with a nation with which the whole (Britain) is at
war, or that a navy can be of any use to an Empire
which in time of need has not instant and unques-
tioned control of it.

The Navy League is an advocate with only one
client, the Empire as a whole, and is concerned in only
one matter, the maintenance of British sea power.
There is a tendency to-day to make a tyrant of the
machine which we created for our service, to sub-
ordinate public good to party considerations, to forget
that in the last event, if the country perishes, the
parties perish with it.

Against that tendency Navy Leagues will be called
upon, especially in Canada, to fight their hardest fight.
It will be their duty to set their object clearly before
them, and then remaining, if they please, staunch
Tories or zealous Radicals, count those only as their
friends who work for Britain's supremacy at sea, and
the rest of the world, not as enemies, but as misin-
formed and mistaken fellow citizens, for them to edu-
cate and convert, until they too are upon our side.

This sounds as if we were striving for an impossible
ideal. We are. It is every brave man's duty so to do.
Failure to attain matters nothing if the attempt brings
us nearer to our goal, and already we have come
nearer to it, for in England men of both parties are on
our side, Mr. Blatchford, the Socialist leader, on one
extreme wing, Mr. Balfour on the other. Both are
leaders in the Navy League's fight.

The; Canadian Navai, Question. 23

The British Navy Leagues, then (and I include all
bodies, working for the same ends, whatever they are
called), are associations of Britons of all parties work-
ing for the maintenance of their Empire's supremacy
at sea, that is, for its Very Life, and the way in which
they work is the way of all propagandists, by trying to
inform themselves first, of the real truth concerning
their subject (Britain's navy) ; of the actual state of
other navies which may or might be opposed to it; of
the best way to protect their country from any danger
which might threaten it, and of the strongest argu-
ments for convincing others of the soundness of Navy
League views, and by preaching the Navy League
creed with tongue and pen in such a way that all men
will adopt it and all politicians agree in supporting it.

Our ultimate object is that the Navy League should
be the nation. That accomplished, Britain is safe.

Alone, the Mother Country may not be able to main-
tain for ever the competition with other powers
numerically greater and potentially richer, but with
Her children round Her She can keep the seas to the
glory of God and the benefit of all peaceful traders.

You may say to me justly, your Navy League is not
a new body; you have been tried for some years; what
have you or similar bodies in other countries done ?

In answering, let me invert the order of the ques-
tion.

In Germany, Britain's greatest and most dangerous
rival, a Navy League known as the Flotteverein, was
founded in 1898.

The Germans had learned in their war with Den-
mark (1848-49) that without a fleet the greatest of
military powers might be helpless against an infinitely
weaker power with a strong navy, and the years as
they rolled by enforced this lesson, until in 1898 the
Emperor of Germany appealed to His people for such
a navy as would put the sea power of the world into
His mailed fist.

24 The Canadian "Naval Question.

Don't waste your energy in indignation.
Certain national conditions make it better, we think,
for the world, that the sea power should be in the
hand's of the world's greatest trader, rather than in
the hands of the world's greatest soldier, but, apart
from this, there is nothing to be said' against Ger-
many's ambition.

The worst of the Germans from our point of view
(as possible antagonists), is that they are so extremely
like ourselves.

Much that is best in us came from them; some of
the good which was in us they have kept, and we have
lost. There is only one other Emperor alive who is
the peer of their Great Worker. In some things they
have excelled us; in some (even trade) they are dan-
gerously close upon our heels. Their ideals are high;
their scientific attainments the highest; their home life
beautiful and clean; on land they have no equals, but
on the sea we must, if we would continue to exist, be
masters.

The very fact that Germany would make the most
admirable of friends for Britain, enforces every word
I write, for such as Germany mate only with equals,
and unless we maintain our supremacy at sea, as She
maintains Her supremacy on land, we shall no longer
have a right to that respect upon which only national
friendship can be surely founded.

Any attempt to belittle our great rival, or to embitter
personal feelings between the members of the two
great races, is not only useless and contemptible, but
is diametrically opposed to the very spirit of England,
which taught an Englishman even greater courtesy and
consideration for the man who stood against him in
the Prize Ring than he would show to his own friend.
Forgive this digression, which, after all, seems neces-
sary, and let us get back to the Flotteyerein.

In 1898, then, in direct response to their Emperor's
call, His people formed their Navy League for the ex-

The Canadian NavAl Question. 2$

press purpose of giving Germany a navy which should
hold the same position upon the seas which Germany's
army holds upon the land. You know what that is,
and what the existence of such a navy would mean to
Britain.

The Germans do not do things by halves. Their
Emperor not only Called to His people, but He gave the
new league as its leader His own brother, Prince Henry
of Prussia, and, naturally enough, the chiefs of the
German nobility enrolled themselves as members of
the league, and the people swarmed after their natural
leaders, until to-day, the league has between one and
two million members, and an income exceeding £50,000
per annum.

This League has papered Germany with its pam-
phlets and war maps ; it has begotten a naval spirit
even in the inland agricultural districts of the Empire ;
it has taught the people the outlines of their own coasts
and their rivals', and its work is almost done.

The Emperor acknowledges His indebtedness to His
League, and the Premier of Great Britain has admitted
that in 19 12 the Germans will have 17 Dreadnaughts
to our 20, instead of Britain having two keels to one
of any possible navy that could be brought against Her.

Sir Edward Grey tells our people that when the
German programme is completed, Germany will have
a fleet of 33 Dreadnaughts (the most powerful fleet
the world has ever seen) close to our shores, and the
last news was (Morning Posty June 16th, 1910) that
of the completion of a great naval base upon the
North Sea within 350 miles of Sheerness.

A Canadian writer (Mr. C. F. Hamilton in the
University Magazine) tells us that in 1896 the German
battle fleet consisted of four small, badly constructed,
thoroughly inferior ships.

The German navy seems to have grown since then,
and I believe that the German Emperor would tell you,
if you enjoyed His confidence, that it was His Navy
League which made it grow.

26 The Canadian Navai, Question.

I think that I have now answered that part of the
question which relates to the work of other Navy
Leagues. Let me apply myself now to answering as to
our own, and, inasmuch as I am not able to obtain a
reliable estimate of the number of members in the
English League, I shall concern myself principally
with the work done by the branches of it in Canada.

Some idea of the comparative weakness of our
national League may be obtained by contrasting the
income of the German League (over £50,000 per
annum) with that of its English rival (£3,500 per
annum), but it must be remembered that ours was not
created at the call of the King nor led by one of our
royal Princes. When it is so led, it may give a differ-
ent account of itself. As to the branch of the League
with which I am personally connected, I am not
ashamed of its record.

It has not yet created a navy, as the Flotteverein has
done, but it has created public opinion in the Dominion
in which it works, and the embryo navy of Canada,
small though it is to-day, may yet grow with that
rapidity which is characteristic of our West. For
Britain's sake, God grant it may.

The first branch of the Navy League founded in
Canada was founded at Toronto in 1895. It was
natural that such a movement should have its cradle
in the home of the United Empire Loyalists, and it was
not less natural that its second home should be in Vic-
toria Esquimalt, the western outpost of Empire, proud
in the memory of its great godmother, impulsive with
the impulse of the West, and, until a recent unhappy
date, one of the homes of Britain's navy.

Since then branches have grown up in various parts
of Canada, no less than six of them being in this Pro-
vince, but even as late as 1905, although a few zealous
men had tried to show to Canada that it was Her duty
as a grown-up child of the Empire to contribute Her
share to that Empire's main line of defence, Public

The Canadian Naval Question. 27

Opinion was distinctly opposed to naval contribution,
and a Navy League lecturer was expected to prove
that it was Canada's duty to herself and to her mother,
as well as to her own interest, to pay her share of the
Imperial insurance fund.

The exponents of public opinion argued that (1)
there should be no taxation without representation,
forgetting that the British Navy represented Canada
and protected Her, and Her commerce all over the
world; that (2) we needed all our resources for our
national development, forgetting that it is useless to
develop unless we can retain what we develop, and
that our annual deficit has become an annual surplus ;
that (3) we needed local squadrons for coast defence,
forgetting that the only way to protect a coast is to go
after the enemy and crush him with "foot loose fleets " ;
that (4) the naval department of the United Kingdom
was inefficient, forgetting the naval history of our
Empire and that Canadian ability, if proved, would
be as welcome in that department of the Empire as
any other; that (5) we were safe under the Monroe
doctrine, forgetting that protection by a foreign power
involved subordination to that power; that (6) the
French-Canadians objected to any form of contribu-
tion, generalizing unfairly, it is believed, and forgetting
that French-Canadians are British first, and have prob-
ably more to lose (language, religious freedom, na-
tional laws) by conquest or annexation, than any other
class in Canada; that (7) the British Navy must in any
case defend sea-borne colonial commerce, forgetting
the dignity of our young nation, and that a navy sup-
ported by a part only of the Empire might not always
be able to protect the whole; that (8) Canada had not
money enough to spare any for the upkeep of the
navy, forgetting our annual surplus and that such sur-
plus could not be more wisely employed than in insur-
ing our sources of income; and that (9) Canada had
already done Her share in building the Canadian Pacific

28 The Canadian NavAi, Question.

Railway and other great works of Imperial utility,
forgetting that these were Her share of the building of
Empire and sources of wealth to Her, and that what
we were asking Her to do was to pay Her share in the
protection of the thing built, i.e., the British Empire,
having admittedly done Her share in the building of it.

This was the position only five years ago. We had
many and strong individuals upon our side; we had
strong friends in the press, but the great majority had
not then mastered the facts or considered the argu-
ments, and was, therefore, opposed to the principle
of contribution.

To-day, all that has been changed. The principle
of contribution has been established, so that there is
hardly a public man of any weight in Canada who dare
oppose it from a public platform, and not only has the
principle been conceded, but a national naval policy has
been adopted, which does something to satisfy Can-
ada's honor, and may in the future do much to
strengthen the Empire's position.

The Navy Leaguer of to-day has only to contend
that we should go further than we have gone upon our
chosen road' and do something to avert what we con-
ceive to be an immediate peril by immediate help.

One word more, and I have done. The Navy League
offers almost the only opportunity for some of us to
serve our Empire as all of us would wish to do.
Though their lips were sealed, of course, there were
many sore hearts when the boys came back from
Africa. All over the English-speaking world there
were men who cheered young Tommy Atkins, but not
because he had done his duty. They cheered him as a
gallant and lucky lad, but, at the bottom of their
hearts, they were jealous of him. To him had been
given what to them had been denied, the privilege of
fighting for Britain, and at heart they rebelled because
the opportunity had found them too late, because
Britain was still in a position, thank God, to pick and

The Canadian Naval Question. 29

choose the fittest, youngest and best, and the years
which had left them young at heart, had left them
unfit even to die for her.

To these especially, I commend the words of Sir
George Clarke in the "Navy and the Nation," "Not as
pant of a consistent scheme of national policy; not on
the initiative of a great statesman, was it at length
determined to strengthen the fleet. The Naval De-
fence Act of 1889 was due to the efforts of writers
and speakers."

So, gentlemen, there is still work for you to do, well
worth the doing, even if your eyes are dim and your
physical strength on the wane.

Get into the scrimmage as Navy Leaguers, and play
with your heads if you can no longer play with your
hands. Your business is to collect and marshal the
facts which affect your cause ; to consider and evolve
arguments which will appeal to the people, and, above
all, to see that the masses of the people who have not
all of them leisure to educate themselves in naval mat-
ters, are by you thoroughly informed of the facts, and
shown the incidence of these facts upon their own
individual interests.

We are not a society for collecting money with
which to build a fleet. That is the work of the nation
as a nation, to which all will contribute in proportion,
just as each man pays the insurance upon his own
property.

We are a society for proving to the people that the
maintenance of an invincible fleet is essential for the
preservation of the nation as such, and the protection
of the interests of every member of it and in our busi-
ness, beyond the bare funds necessary to carry on our
propaganda, what we want is not money but men, not
dollars but votes.

As far as I know, we pay none of our officials. Some
of them pay freely for the honour of serving, which is
the right spirit, the spirit of our kings, and of the
best of our citizens.

30 The Canadian Naval Question.

But we want every man with a warm British heart,
with just British pride, with a clear British brain and
temperate British tongue, to spread our doctrines, con-
vince his neighbours, and, if need be, his political rep-
resentative.

To this end we seek members who, in return for a
subscription of $2 per annum for our bare working
expenses, will receive a monthly journal dealing with
naval matters, designed to supply him with his brief.
Such members will have a vote in the management of
the League.

We also seek associate members, amongst those who,
for any reason, cannot spare $2 per annum, and these
we charge 25 cts. per annum, giving them in exchange
a vote in our management, and a quarterly magazine
somewhat less pretentious than the journal.

And by "man" we mean human being of full age,
and either sex, realizing fully the influence of woman,
and believing that if the ladies would only enforce the
old law, that only the brave deserve the fair, we should
find every man in Canada in our ranks, eager to do all
he could in person and in purse, to uphold the dignity
of his race, protect the homes of his people and pre-
serve the heritage which his <sires won, for the enjoy-
merut of his children.

Men and women of Canada, point out the fallacies
of my argument if you can ; examine my facts merci-
lessly but fairly, but if you find my position sound, if
you love honour and would fain see good days for
your children and your children's children, join the
League, and help to bring your neighbours to a right
understanding of their true interests and of the best
way to conserve them.

The Canadian Naval Question. 31

WHY IS THE NAVAL SUPREMACY
OF BRITAIN VITAL TO CANADA?

Before I can answer this question intelligently, you
must answer me one question. Who are you?

This lies at the root of the matter in hand.

If you answer me that you are Canadians, I shall
understand that you are members of a vigorous young
nation about eight million strong, having an almost
indefensible land frontier, running for nearly four
thousand miles along the borders of a possible, if very
improbable, enemy, of ten times your strength.

I shall understand that you have vast seaboards on
both sides of your Dominion, defended by one old,
first-class cruiser, the "Niobe," and one older, third-
class cruiser, the "Rainbow," and when these vessels
are not actively employed in protecting your fisheries
or your mercantile marine in all parts of the world.

I shall understand that you hold in trust for your
heirs, about three and a half million square miles of
the best unoccupied white man's land in the world;
that you have about $200,000,000 worth of wares upon
the high seas every year ; that you have wheat enough
to feed the world, coal enough to warm it and make all
its wheels go round, lumber enough to fence it in,
build its houses and its fleets ; that you have cities and
national utilities whose value I am unable to compute,
and, over and above all this tangible wealth, those
" illimitable possibilities " of which one of your fav-
ourite Governor-Generals, Lord DufTerin, never tired
of telling you.

Behind you, in the past, you have some three or
four hundred years of national history, made glorious
by the indomitable perseverance of your pioneers, hal-
lowed by the self-sacrifice of your United Empire
Loyalists, and crowned by the evolution of Canada as
a nation.

32 The Canadian Naval Question.

Before you, in the future, you have a great hope.

If Canada is allowed time to grow to maturity before
her hour of trial comes, the future should be hers, as
the past has been her mother's.

The greatest slice of land, suitable to the require-
ments of the white races, is hers already, whilst the
carrying trade of the Pacific and the markets of Asia
are waiting for her to enter in and possess them.

It is with that "if" that we are concerned.

If you are only Canadians, this time is not likely to
be given to you.

If you are only a nation eight million strong, with
one old cruiser for each ocean that washes your shores,
with only two human beings for each square mile you
possess, with an army at the very utmost of 100,000
men, it is worth while to remember that your West
Coast seems to suit the Japanese, and that they have
about a hundred fighting ships to your two, and an
army which has just conquered Russia; that Germany
can put into the field four million trained soldiers, and
is building the greatest fleet that the world ever saw,
and that both these mighty nations are terribly
cramped for room and seek empty spaces for their
people.

Human beings are still predatory. Only the strong
can command peace. It is land that the peoples crave,
colonies that the great nations seek. An empty con-
tinent is an irresistible temptation to a warlike and
hungry people. Do you think that alone, as Cana-
dians, you are yet strong enough to keep what all the
world covets?

But suppose that you tell me that you are English !

In that case I shall understand that you belong to a
nation of forty-two million, crowded into the hundred
and twenty thousand square miles of the United King-
dom ; a nation of forty-two millions, of whom every
man bears ten men's burdens, paying for the policing
of all seas, the protection of about fourteen million

The Canadian Navai, Question. 33

square miles of land, and the insurance of 1,600,000,-
000 pounds' worth of commerce annually; a nation
with a history which has no peer in all Earth's records ;
a nation that has not yet, mind you, called to her
daughter nations for assistance, but one, nevertheless,
which cannot for ever maintain the struggle against
European powers numerically stronger and potentially
richer than herself; a nation which, like the fabled
pelican, feeds her brood annually with her own best
blood, but one which has no more room for expan-
sion within her own borders, which cannot possibly
feed herself, which has an army excellent in quality,
but, as compared with the armies of Europe, almost
negligible in quantity, and a navy which is at last
seriously challenged for that mastery of the seas upon
which Her very life depends.

If you insist upon calling yourselves either Cana-
dians or English, you are indeed in bad case.

As Canadians, your hard-won wealth, your children's
heritage of broad acres, that national type which your
history has produced, the fruits of your past and hopes
of your future, are at the mercy of any predatory
nation which believes with Bismarck that the only per-
fectly healthv state is a perfectly selfish one.

As Englishmen, you are among the last of a splen-
did but overburdened people, whose great day's work
is almost done.

But if ye be Britons, hold up your heads and face
the future, and rejoice as a young man to run a race,
a race that for you as Britons is only just beginning.

As Britons, the greatest pages in the world's his-
tory are yours ; the red pages of India and Europe ;
the golden pasres of maritime adventure ; the pure
white pages which record the growth of a people's
liberties, the making of a people's laws, and the spread
of Christianity by a people and a people's Kings.

I do not say that even as Britons all the world is yet
yours, but I do say that most of it which is best worth

34 The Canadian Naval Question.

having happens to be British; that the sea's highways
are yours, and the best of the goals to which they lead;
that the road-makers and the land-breakers, the teach-
ers and the lawgivers, the explorers and pioneers, the
lords (because they were the servants) of the world's
wild races in all lands, were your fathers or your bro-
thers ; that if you will, you can feed the world with
Great Britain's manufactured wares, Canada's corn
and beef, Australia's mutton, the sugar and spices of
the Indies, and that if you will you can close the sea
gates upon the predatory peoples, and keep all seas
for peaceful trade.

This you cannot do as Canadians or Australians, or
even as New Zealanders, though the heart of New
Zealand (God bless her) is big enough for anything.

These things you cannot perhaps continue to do as
Englishmen.

These things cannot be done bv a kinedom, or bv
divided dominions, but they can be done by a United
"Empire of four hundred and fiftv million Britons own-
ing a quarter of the habitable globe, and controlling a
commerce of £1,600,000,000 sterling per annum.

Here, then, T come to my first conclusion.

If you would secure the time necessary for each
component part of the Empire to grow to maturity;
if you would insure what you have won, and lay hands
on the hope of your future, vou cannot afTord any
lonjyer to face the world as English or Canadians, Aus-
tralians or New Zealanders ; vou must do so as Brit-
ons, and as Britons it is the duty of the various com-
ponent parts of the Empire to contribute to maintain
the naval basis of that Empire's corporate existence.

Is there any alternative course open to you?

As Englishmen, you might "let the Colonies go" ;
shrink, as old age shrinks, into your narrow island
limits, and die slowly of a timid and selfish senility, an
object of pity to those of your enemies who knew and
dreaded you in your prime.

The; Canadian Naval Question. 35

Better a thousand times face the unequal combat,
attempt the impossible without your children's help,
and sink in the seas that nursed you, with the Jack
nailed to the mast, whilst an awed world wonders.

As Canadians, you have two alternatives, and,
though only Canadian by adoption, I say with certainty
that no Canadian worthy of the name will accept either
of them.

You might, if you chose, refuse to contribute your
share to the Imperial naw's upkeep, and still continue
to shelter yourselves and your commerce under its
protection, and as long as that navy could protect
itself, it would undoubtedly continue to protect you ; or
you might cower behind the protection of the Monroe
doctrine and the United States.

In the first case, you would be parasites to the
mother country; in the second, you would become
parasites of a stranger.

Neither of these policies (the shame of them apart)
would pay. It is conceded that Great Britain alone
cannot maintain indefinitely the struggle against the
great powers of Europe, and it is obvious that when-
ever the limit of Her endurance is reached any daugh-
ter nation which has depended upon Her for shelter
will stand naked and defenceless before the world.

The first parasitic policy might procure for a time
freedom from the cost of defence, but it would end in
the loss of everything, including national honour.

The second parasitic policy means annexation by
the United States, since it is inconceivable that a nation
of the keenest traders in the world would protect an-
other man's business for nothing, and annexation
means absorption, the loss of Canada's 8,000,000 white
men swamped in the 80,000,000 of her neighbour's
parti-coloured population ; the irretrievable loss of
Canada's identity as a nation, and of the type evolved
by her history; the loss to French-Canadians of those
special privileges as to religion, law and language.

36 The Canadian Navai, Question.

which they so highly prize ; the substitution of Ameri-
can laws made to be evaded, for British laws invariably
enforced; the exchange of British institutions, which
Americans openly envy, for the institutions of the
States ; of our ordered liberty for their loud-mouthed
license; and (putting the case at its best) the substitu-
tion of a partnership in the second-best business in the
world for a partnership in the best, to say nothing of
the fact that whereas at present Canada's eight millions
own the unskimmed half of this continent, they would,
if annexed, receive in exchange for it only an eleventh
interest in the whole.

Annexation to the States would not even save Can-
ada money in the matter of defence, since, if the
States annexed us, they would be obliged, in common
fairness to their present citizens, to insist upon pay-
ment by the newcomers of their full share of the
national expenditure for naval and military purposes,
and that share would amount to far more than any
contribution contemplated or necessary for similar
Imperial purposes.

Your distinguished fellow-citizen, Colonel Denison,
has, I think, computed that if annexed by the States,
Canada's share in the Defence Fund of that country
would amount to $25,000,000 per annum, whilst the
total cost of the building of a complete fleet unit for
the Empire is estimated at less than $18,000,000, and
its annual upkeep at only $3,000,000.

It is difficult, in the somewhat uncertain state of our
affairs at present, to decide how much per head Can-
ada does contribute towards the Defence Fund of the
Empire, but it is at least safe to say that Great Bri-
tain's contribution to that fund is not less than $6.55
per head, and the contribution of the citizens of the
United States to their Defence Fund not less than $5.90
per head, whereas the contribution of Canada for the
same purposes need not exceed a fifth of this, if she
contributes on the basis first suggested by the British
Admiralty.

The Canadian Navai, Question. 37

It has been shown, then, that shelter under the
Monroe Doctrine means annexation, and that annexa-
tion would be unpalatable and unprofitable, and that
independence for Canada at present is impossible, and
it may be added that if it were possible it would be
ruinously expensive, since a nation of 8,000,000 would,
to defend itself, be obliged to incur an expenditure
equal to that of its possible enemy with a population
of 80,000,000.

Having shown these facts, we come back to the only
possible position for Canada, which is also the natural
position, the most honourable position, and the least
expensive, the position of an integral part of the
British Empire.

As an integral part of the British Empire, whatever
is vital to that Empire is vital to Canada, and we have
shown that the maintenance of Britain's supremacy at
sea is vital to her.

That Empire of which we are an integral part grew
from the narrow islands of the United Kingdom, by
maritime adventure and colonization (which mastery
of the sea alone made possible), into an Empire which
now includes one-fourth of the known world.

Its territory is composed of vast and detached tracts
of land upon different continents, and of hundreds of
islands scattered over all the oceans.

These are all separated from each other by the sea,
and bound together by the sea; all are very largely
dependent upon each other for their trade, and all
dependent upon the Imperial Navy for their pro-
tection.

No one of them is capable of protecting itself single-
handed, whilst Great Britain, the centre of the whole
Empire, can only feed herself with imported food-
stuffs.

Three hundred vessels a week are required to sup-
ply this Heart of the Empire with food and raw
material, and from the Heart of the Empire its com-

38 The Canadian Naval Question.

ponent parts still draw the largest part of the money
necessary for their development, an important part of
the men who develop them, and practically all that
prestige and consideration which a great navy com-
mands, and it is this and this alone which secures
Canada in her possessions, enables her to ship her pro-
duce in safety to all parts of the world, and dictate to
the Asiatics who shall and who shall not enter into
and settle upon her lands.

That which applies to other bodies, applies to the
body of Britain. Any limb separated from the trunk
must die, causing loss and disaster to the whole from
which it is severed, but that which is fatal to the heart
kills the whole body.

If Britain lost control of the seas, she could be
starved to death, without a blow struck; her daughter
nations, deprived of her support, could be dealt with in
detail by anyone who controlled the sea's highways;
the fabric of Empire would vanish like a dream ; the
wheat lands, coal fields, lumber limits, and young cities
of Canada, would pay the conqueror for the building
of his victorious navy, and those Canadians, if there
were any, who had refused to pay a ridiculously small
annual subscription to make the Common Navy of
their own Empire invincible, would be compelled not
only to pay their share of a war indemnity in the pres-
ent, but their share in money and personal service,
towards the upkeep of the Army and Navy which had
conquered them in conquering Britain.

The supremacy of the seas is vital to Britain; the
continued existence of Britain is vital to Her daughter
nations; therefore, Britain's supremacy at sea is vital
to Canada.

Christianity, pride of race, gratitude, self-interest,
all alike demand from Canada that she contribute to
that Imperial Navy which is the basis of the corporate
existence of that Empire of which She is a part.

As a Christian nation, it is vital to Her that the

The Canadian Naval Question. 39

Fidei Defensor of the world should retain her power;
that the Great Trader to whom peace is essential
should continue to control the world's sea-ways.

As trustee of the pioneers, it is Her bounden duty to
maintain that Imperial Navy which is the only bulwark
between the land-hungry nations of the world and the
heritage of those for whom She has been appointed
to act.

As a proud young nation, it is essential to Her that
She should obtain that time for growth which only the
protection of the Imperial Navy can give, and, as a
nation of business men, it is imperatively necessary
that She should contribute to the only fund which can
insure Her sea-borne wealth, the Defence Fund of the
Empire.

Remember, that in any war which Britain may have
to wage against the great powers of Europe, Britain
will have to stake Her life against Her enemy's limb.
The loss of Britain's Navy would be the loss of Bri-
tain's life, and our liberties as a free people ; the loss
of Germany's Navy would only leave Her where She
was twenty years ago, a great continental power, with
an unassailable territory guarded by the greatest army
in the world.

Remember, too, that the threat of war does almost
as much harm to trade as war itself; that what you
and all the commercial nations of the world require,
is a guarantee of peace, and that, therefore, it is the
duty of Britons all over the world to make their Com-
mon Navy not merely strong enough to defeat any
other navies in combination, but so strong that no other
navies will dare to try conclusions with it.

Such a navy alone will command peace and lighten
the burden of taxation for many nations besides our
own.

40 The Canadian Navai, Question.

THE MENACE

I have tried, up to this point, to show what the
British Empire is, and that the vital interests of the
whole are vital to every part of it; that separation
means death to the limb separated and the gravest dan-
ger to the trunk from which it is severed; and that
Britain's unity, and Britain's very existence, depend
upon the maintenance of Her sea power.

I am now to show, if I can, that a real menace to
Her continued supremacy at sea exists, and that the
necessity for meeting it is urgent.

Here in a nutshell is the story; the world knows it;
it is the glory of the Teuton and the peril of the Anglo-
Saxon.

In 1815, after Waterloo, Europe paused, spent with
the strain of war; most of the powers were ruined;
Germany was unheard of; and England was not only
the supreme naval power, she was, thanks to the sea-
loving character of Her people and the genius of Her
greatest son, the only naval power.

She owned the seas, and policed them. As the great
sea carrier, She reaped the harvest of then wealth.
All lands over-seas were Hers without question, to
produce raw material for Her factories, as markets
for Her manufactured goods, as colonies for Her
surplus population.

For a hundred years She reaped where Her heroes
had sown; She grew wealthy beyond the dreams of
avarice ; She moved armies of Her colonists across the
seas She policed, that they might enter in, and possess
all the fairest of Earth's waste places, and She almost
forgot how She came by Her inheritance.

But whilst She waxed wealthy, other countries re-
covered their strength, and one of the least of them
grew with a giant's growth.

Prussia was a hungry land with a scanty popula-

The Canadian Naval Question. 41

tion; manufactures, if any, poor and insignificant; a
negligible army, and certainly no sea dreams.

But a hard country breeds hard men, Scotland
knows that, and Canada, and if Prussia did not breed
fat cattle or make fine wares, She bred men and made
soldiers.

After a time She bred Bismarck.

Now, if I were a German I would thank God every
day for Bismarck; as I am not, my prayer shall be
" Give Kitchener a chance." We do not know the
measure of his capacity as yet, but we do know that
he is of the same blood-and-iron brand as Bismarck,
of that brand which makes Empires or keeps them, of
that brand which demands work and does it, which,
instead of saying things, does them, which looks ahead,
perfects details, and therefore wins. So much he has
proved.

In 1862 Bismarck began his work by reorganizing
the Prussian army in conjunction with Van Roon.
In 1864 he began to use the weapon they had made.
He attacked Denmark, and annexed Schleswig-Hol-
stein. This gave him Kiel, a footing on the sea and
an outlet for Prussian traders.

In 1866 he attacked Austria, defeated Her in six
weeks, and took Hanover, Hesse and Nassau.

In 1870 Prussia attacked France, defeated Her, took
Alsace and Lorraine from Her, and an indemnity of
£200,000,000.

Then the Germany which Bismarck had built re-
placed the Prussia which begot him, and the world,
opening its eyes, saw the Master of Europe, a mighty
confederation of German States under one Emperor,
with an army of 4,000,000 men, equipped and organ-
ized as no other army ever was.

The world saw more. It saw a flat contradiction of
the stories of the anti-militarists ; a proof of the wis-
dom of the law of creation, that everything must fight
to live, that it is war, not peace, that perfects men.

42 Thh Canadian Naval Question.

This intensely military State had grown as greatly
in arts as She had in arms, and to-day, after all Her
wars, in spite of (or because of) Her law of universal
service, Germany has almost overtaken Britain in Her
race for wealth. She is close on Her heels as a trader,
She has surpassed Her in population, and She stands
without a rival in the world of science.

Two things only this great power still lacks, the
mastery of the sea for Her trade, and the waste places
of the world for Her crowded people, and these two
things the Anglo-Saxon races hold.

Given these two, Bismarck's child might stretch out
its hand and take that crown of world dominion for
which all the great military races of the earth have
competed in vain since history began.

France has been crushed; Russia has been crippled
by Japan; Austria has been coerced into an alliance;
Japan cannot afford to take Her eyes off Her crippled
foe ; the Eastern races are neither homogeneous nor
trained; America is still a mob neither disciplined nor
made, with a little leaven in Her of the best, which, in
spite of Her lack of those essentials which made
nations, the unities of race, religion and history, may
yet lift Her above all the world; there is only one
serious rival left for Germany, and that is Britain;
Britain, the Sea Queen, strong in her command of
ocean's highways, strong as long as She can keep them
open for Her trade and Her food, too strong even for
Germany as long as those sea links are unsevered,
which alone bind Her five nations in one.

But if at sea is Britain's strength, at sea, too, is
Britain's vulnerable spot. Stop those highways, and
you starve Her. Break those links, and the limbs must
fall off and die. Take from Her Her sea power, and
She has no weapon left to fight with.

And this Germany knows. She learned in 1848
from the Danes the uses of a navy, and the limitations
of a land power, and Germany not only remembers,

The Canadian Naval. Question. 43

but what She learns She applies. The application of
other people's inventions to practical purposes is Ger-
many's most valuable characteristic.

If, up to this point, I have made Germany's career
plain to you, and the causes of Her success, Her
future course should be very obvious to you. She has
only Britain to conquer, and She can only conquer
Her at sea. But here the humanitarian, the anti-mili-
tarist, the pestilent " Gasbag," who in India undoes
work with words, who still believes that cats won't
steal cream, comes in and tells us that for moral
reasons Germany would never think of fighting Bri-
tain, or quarrelling with America, though the German
nation is composed of units who are uncomfortably
crowded, of units who want markets for their goods,
of men the most matter-of-fact the world has ever
seen.

And this cry of the anti-militarist in spite of the
almost brutally frank confessions of the Germans
themselves ! These are the men we are competing
with, men who don't even condescend to lie, except
professionally as diplomatists.

Do you not know that an ambassador has been de-
fined as a good man sent abroad to lie for his country's
good; do you not know that the great German Em-
peror taught that secrecy was the soul of success in
war : that a ruler was bound to break agreements which
conflicted with His people's interests : that any war
was justified if it added to the prestige of the people,
and have you forgotten the basis of Bismarck's creed,
that the only thoroughly healthy state is a thoroughly
selfish one?

Charity begins at home in Germany, as it should
everywhere. It may spread as much as it pleases from
that point, and the stronger the home the greater its
power of doing good, but charity must begin at home.

I do not propose here to enter into the moral aspect
of Germany's wars with other nations — Denmark,

44 The Canadian Naval Question.

Austria or France. Those who do pretend to show-
that in every instance Germany manufactured her
casus belli to suit her own convenience.

Be this as it may, it matters little to us. We may
take it for granted that if it is to Germany's advantage,
or to the advantage of any country, to wage war upon
Britain, a casus belli will arise, providing sufficient
justification for the war.

It is my business to show that Germany is rapidly
putting herself in such a position that if a casus belli
arose she could undertake the war, with greater pros-
pects of success than would be healthy for us.

Her intentions must be judged by her deeds, and
if these do not speak with sufficient clearness I will
add to them the opinions of some of our greatest public
men and the frank declarations of some of the leading
Germans of to-day.

Let us begin with the deeds.

I have shown how Germany's land power grew until
she became the undisputed War Lord of Europe. To
become more than that, it was necessary for Her to
dominate the sea as She already dominated the land.

If She could do that, She would bring within Her
reach not only the trade and the room for expansion
which She openly covets, but that world-dominion
which has been the prize for which ambitious nations
have fought and failed from Alexander's time to that
of Napoleon, and it must be borne in mind that the
sea power, the trade and the Colonies are Britain's.

In 1896 we learn on reliable authority that Germany's
battle fleet consisted of four small, badly constructed,
thoroughly inferior ships, whereas to-day she has
eighteen fairly good battleships of the pre-Dread*-
naught class, and is building Dreadnaughts so fast that
in 1912 she will be almost our equal in such ships.

That is where the real danger threatens.

It is not that at the present moment, with the ships
that are built, Germany or any other power seriously

The Canadian Naval Question. 45

threatens our continued supremacy at sea, but it is that,
in the words of the First Lord of the Admiralty, "A
day will come when the maintenance of our superiority
will depend upon our superiority in Dreadnaughts
alone," and " The German power of constructing this
particular type of vessel is at this time almost if not
fully equal to our own, owing to their rapid develop-
ment within the past eighteen months."

Sir Edward Grey, always considered almost a type
of the moderate, level-headed statesman, is our author-
ity for the statement that when Germany's present pro-
gramme is completed, that country, " a great country
close to our shores, will have a fleet of 33 Dread-
naughts. That fleet," he added, "would be the most
powerful the world has ever yet seen." Graf von
Reventlow makes it 38 instead of 33. And there is no
sign that Germany's pace is slackening.

On the contrary, we know that in IQ09 She had
only one or two " slips " capable of carrying a Dread-
naught, whereas to-day She has seventeen. In earlier
days we could afford to let Germany or any other
country design a ship, build a specimen or two of the
new type, show us its merits or demerits, and then, if
we chose, we could go ahead and outbuild Her in ships
of Her own design.

To-day it is a question whether we can build as
quickly as She can.

In 1900 Germany spent upon Her Navy £3,401,000,
but in 1909 she spent £10,751,000 upon it, and that
although She declared a deficit of £10,000,000 that
year.

It looks as if She meant to at least carry out Her
programme, which will result in a navy of 33 Dread-
naughts, " the most powerful fleet the world has ever
yet seen."

And the fact that She spent £10,751,000 upon Her
navy in a year which showed a deficit of £10,000,000
suggests that She is building upon borrowed money.

46 The: Canadian Naval Question.

Do men borrow except for an emergency, and if not
what is the emergency? Who is to pay back that loan
with interest, and how?

The long quays at Emden for the shipping of an
invading force are known to us, and the cost of them;
the enlarging of the Kiel canal is no secret. At Wood-
stock it was mv good luck to have in my audience a
gentleman of Ontario who had just returned from
Germany. Those who listened to his sober account of
the preparations which he had just seen with his own
eyes will perhaps blame me for the moderation of my
story, but I think that it needs no strong colour.

The last important news of Germany's preparations
came to us in July, iqio, and was to the effect that
our neighbour had completed Her splendid naval base
in the North Sea at Wilhelmshaven, 350 miles from
Sheerness, and was practising Her forces in the use
of it.

Add to this that we are informed that these battle-
ships which Germany is constructing at such a terrific
pace are of so limited a coal-carrying capacity that
thev can only operate against a very near neighbour,
and then tell me what they are being built for?

They are not built for the benefit of France or
Austria, or any great continental power, because Ger-
many's army of 4,000,000 men is amply sufficient to
settle with any European power, and that army needs
no ships to transport it into its neighbour's territory.
They are not built for the benefit of America, China
or Japan, because, with such coal-carrying capacity as
they have, they could not reach these countries. They
can only have been built for a near neighbour whose
one weapon is Her fleet, who is accessible only by the
sea, and who is within very short range of Wilhelms-
haven. -w%

Graf Ernst von Reventlow, in an article which ap-
peared in the last Navy League Annual, declares that
the object of Germany's great shipbuilding programme

The Canadian Navai, Question. 47

is the protection of Germany's commerce, her Colonies
and oversea interests, but one i? tempted to ask " Who
threatened them?"

Is Britain sorely in need of colonies? Even in this,
which some amusing people seem to regard as her
period of decadence, is her trade in such a very bad
way? Read the astounding records and judge for
yourselves.

Has she given Germany or any other oow-er reason
to suspect her of military ambition? Has she even
shown herself sufficiently ready to take the offensive?

I read in a German journal of high standing, that
" five years ago England might have done something to
check Germany's naval growth, but that now is too
late," and that " if Bismarck were still alive he would
' call ' Britain's hand."

Quite so, and if any fleet were really necessary to
protect Germany's trade or Colonies or oversea inter-
ests, whatever they may be, which need such expensive
protection, surely England would have struck before
Her rival had perfected Her strength.

Britain's action has proved the fallacy of Germany's
fears, but Germany goes on shipbuilding as fast as
ever.

Apart from instinct, which teaches all created things
the duty of self-preservation, and warns the weak to
hide or arm themselves against the strong, man's only
source of knowledge is experience. He judges from
analogy. What has happened under certain circum-
stances he believes will happen again under similar
circumstances, and, if Britain judges from experience,
and especially from the recent history of Germany,
Britain's outlook is full of peril unless She unites and
arms as an Empire.

All the sanest and wisest and most experienced of
Her sons have warned Her, and have been called scare-
mongers for their pains. Lord Roberts, who won his
cross as a boy, and but recently turned the fortunes of

48 The Canadian Navai, Question.

a dangerous war almost by the weight of his own
ability; Lord Charles Beresford, with his gallant Irish
recklessness sobered by a long career of command;
Mr. Asquith, the level-headed leader of a party to
which any admission as to the existence of this menace
must be damaging in the last degree; Sir Edward
Grey, upon whom men of all parties used to look with
trust as a sober-minded patriot; Mr. Balfour, who
plays politics with as much restraint as if he were play-
ing golf; Lord Cromer, the administrator; Lord Mil-
ner, our greatest Pro-consul; Lord Curzon, with his
knowledge of the world's history, made real to him by
his own share in it; and Mr. Blatchford, with his
socialistic theories, intensified, perhaps, but controlled
by and subordinated to his love of his own land ; these
are your scaremongers, or some of them, backed by the
frank assertions of the press and public speakers of
Germany.

On the other side you may count such great men as
Mr. Lloyd-George, whose life's work seems to be to set
class against class in the old country, and Mr. Win-
ston Churchill.

I will quote you, in conclusion, a few statements
made by the scaremongers and others, and will then
leave you to judge between the admitted facts of
history, the avowed national morals of Germany, and
the deliberate warnings of these scaremongers on the
one side, and the soothing and contemptuous words of
the little navy men on the other.

Here is my first quotation :

The German Navy Bill of 1900 declared that " Ger-
many must possess a battle fleet so strong that a war
with her would, even for the greatest naval power, be
accompanied with such dangers as would render that
power's position doubtful. For this purpose it is not
absolutely necessary that the German fleet should be as
strong as that of the greatest sea power, because, gen-
erally, the greatest sea power will not be in a position
to concentrate all its forces against us."

The Canadian Naval Question. 49

This seems sufficiently explicit, even extraordinarily
so for an Act of Parliament, and the threat in the last
clause suggests our real danger.. Germany does not
need a navy equal to our own. to fight us. She knows
that, though we have stripped our foreign and colonial
stations to concentrate for Her benefit in the North
Sea, we shall not be able to so concentrate when the
day comes.

Germany guards Her North Sea gate; Britain's
scattered Empire makes it necessary for Her to guard
Her gates all over the world.

Here is another quotation :

Professor Treitsche, the great German historian,
wrote : " If Germany has the courage to follow an
independent colonial policy with determination, a col-
lision of our interests with those of England is un-
avoidable." That Germany had to settle affairs with
all the great powers ; that she had settled with Austria-
Hungary, France and Russia, but that the last settle-
ment, the settlement with England, would probably be
the lengthiest and most difficult. The rapid increase
of Germany's population makes it inevitable that She
should follow an independent colonial policy with
determination unless someone is strong enough to
stop Her.

Mr. McKenna, the First Lord of the Admiralty,
admitted the difficulty in which the Imperial Govern-
ment finds itself (March 16th, 1909) of not knowing
the rate at which German construction was taking
place ; he admitted the creation of a " new situation "
by the building of German Dreadnaughts ; admitted
the vast increase in her building power, and the neces-
sity of sacrificing everything for the safety of the
Empire.

Mr. Arthur Balfour, the leader of the Opposition,
stated that we were " face to face with a situation so
dangerous that it is very difficult for us to thoroughly
realize all that it imports. For the first time, there is
bordering on the North Sea, upon the waters bathing

50 The Canadian Naval Question.

our shores, a great power, which has the capacity, and
which looks as if it had the Will, to compete with us
in point of actual numbers of great battleships."

Sir Edward Grey (Foreign Secretary) declared that
" a new situation is for this country created by the
German programme. Whether that programme is
carried out quickly or slowly, the fact of its existence
makes a new situation. When that programme is
completed Germany, a great country close to our own
shores, will have a fleet of 33 Dreadnaughts. This
fleet will be the most powerful which the world has
ever yet seen."

These are a few important specimens of the things
said. To them might be added the words of Mr.
Asquith, Lord Roberts and others, but it seems un-
necessary. If words have weight, these should suffice,
when we add to them the facts that, in spite of the
hostility of the " little Englanders " and extremists on
whose votes the Government of the day in England
largely depended, that Government has been obliged
to sanction increased expenditure upon our Navy ; that
in spite of the sacrifice of other political considera-
tions, our ships have been withdrawn from distant
points and concentrated in home waters ; that all over
the Empire leagues have been formed to urge the
necessity of further expenditure upon navy and mili-
tary defence, of closer union between the component
parts of the Empire, of universal service, of the edu-
cation of our young men in the essential arts of rifle
shooting, and even of our boys in drill and that which
is succinctly termed scouting.

Of course, the strongest proof of the existence of
the danger is the building of the German ships at enor-
mous expense, whilst Germany's budget shows a deficit,
ships suitable only for use against a near neighbour,
ships built for the North Sea and exercised in the
North Sea, with a base created also at enormous
expense in that sea, and the continued strain upon the

The Canadian Naval Question. 51

German finances and the temper of the German lower
classes for expenditures which only an imminent war
with Britain could justify, a war which, if successful,
would for Germany pay the cost in colonies and cash,
in trade and captured ships, and for our Empire would
mean dismemberment and ruin.

If these facts and words prove to reasonable men
that the force of circumstances makes a conflict be-
tween Britain and Germany probable ; if there is noth-
ing in the national morals of Germany to 'prevent it ;
if history warns us that such conflicts have been pre-
cipitated in the immediate past by that country from
purely selfish motives, and if no other construction can
be put upon Germany's programme of shipbuilding and
her establishment of naval bases in the North Sea, it
becomes imperative for Canada to consider whether
she is taking the precautions necessary under the cir-
cumstances.

Her own stake and interests in the possible war
have already been indicated. They are sufficiently
serious. To her, as to Britain, such a war would mean
her continued existence or obliteration as an inde-
pendent nation.

It is for Her to consider whether this war would be
a sudden war, or one with years of warning. To the
writer it seems that we have had our years of warning,
and that the day of Britain's emergency has arrived;
that Britain single-handed cannot expect to cope in-
definitely with a vast European nation potentially
greater in men and money ; that our five nations must
fight as one Empire, if we would be victorious, in
which case I submit that, although the creation of a
Canadian navy is altogether admirable, as a perma-
nent policy, it does not meet the present needs.

If an emergency exists, Britain requires immediate,
substantial help in Her fighting line, whereas such
ships as we now possess or are to possess, instead of
helping to protect, would require protection.

52 The Canadian Naval Question.

The least we can do is to follow the lead of the two
smaller sister nations, and offer fighting ships untram-
melled by conditions — now.

Shall we boast of our prosperity and plead poverty,
in the same breath; vaunt ourselves of our manhood
and cower under the protection of our old Mother or
Her younger children ; claim the first place amongst
the younger nations, and voluntarily take the last?

CANADA'S NAVAL POLICY

I do not propose in this address to advocate my
own personal views, but the views of that considerable
portion of the Public which seem to be most nearly
in accord with my own.

In practical politics, only such views as seem likely
to secure the support of the Electorate have any imme-
diate value, wherefore, the most that a man can do in
an emergency is, to get as near to the attainment of
his object as he can, with the assistance of those he
can persuade to agree with him in part or altogether.

Now, the object of the Navy League, I take it, is
to strengthen our Empire, by adding as much as pos-
sible to that basis of its corporate existence — The
Navy.

If those friends of the League who read this will
keep this object clearly in view, they will the more
easily understand my position, and be the more ready
to support a policy which may not go as far as either
I or they might wish, rather than press for an extreme
policy which we could not possibly carry.

Those who refuse to support a policy because it is
not all they wish, are as foolish and as dangerous as
those who denounce Canada's "tin pot navy," thereby
making it impossible for that to grow, to which they
only object on the score of its diminutive size.

The: Canadian Navai, Question. 53

Help it to grow, gentlemen, instead of trying to
laugh it out of existence. There are just as honest
men as you are trying to make this experiment a
success, and they will want all the help that you can
give them.

Personally, I believe, like many better qualified to
form an opinion, that the cheapest and most effective
aid which Canada could give to the Common Navy of
the Empire would be a contribution in cash to be
spent in the building of ships by those most competent
to build them, in that place in which the greatest
facilities for ship building exist, and in this connection
it is well to remember that ship building is a highly
specialized industry, which cannot be created, either as
to its men or its machinery, at short notice.

Moreover, a number of the minor trades necessary
for the completion of a battleship could only subsist
in a centre where many ships are built. If such trades
established themselves in a small centre, where only
a few ships were built annually, they would be idle
half the year.

It is also worth while to remember how many years
it took the States to learn to build their own ships.

But this is only one side of the question, and even
if the stronger arguments are on this side, which I do
not assert, it is useless to consider them.

Canada could not be persuaded to " pay tribute," as
She calls it, and any attempt to persuade Her, would
alienate Her sympathy, and be a mere waste of time,
and time, if our need is real, is the one thing which
we cannot afford to waste.

It will not hurt us to waste a little money. If it
teaches us anything, it won't be wasted ; but we cannot
afford to waste time.

At present, Canada has elected to do something, but
to take Her own time in the doing of it, and Her own
way, and, after all, the policy of building by driblets
is not a policy peculiar to this part of the Empire.
England Herself has set the pernicious example.

54 The Canadian Navai, Question.

If She is really in imminent danger; if She indeed
wishes to put a stop to competition in ship building
which is draining Her life blood, irritating without
crippling Her rival, and certain eventually to lead to
war, it would be wiser to raise a great loan at once
with which ( to build a fleet beyond the reach of
competition.

It would not only be wiser to do this, but in the
long run it would be cheaper.

Britain's fleet is Her all in all.

A little successful war in South Africa cost her
£300,000,000; a great unsuccessful war would cost Her
everything, and I confess that I am not enough of a
mathematician to express that in figures, but the ships
which I understand Lord Charles Beresford to have
asked for would cost £50,000,000, and an invincible
fleet such as would stop this war of the workshops,
£100,000,000.

Even that apostle of peace, Mr. Cobden, said in
1861, " I would vote £100,000,000 rather than allow
the French Navy to be increased to a level with ours,
because I should say any attempt of that sort without
any legitimate grounds would argue some sinister
design upon this country."

What applied to France in 1861 may be applied
to Germany in 1910, especially after the pronounce-
ment of Herr Gadke to the effect that Germany's fleet
was already larger than was needed for protective
purposes.

If the cost of a war be such as I have stated it to
be, and the prevention of one, such as my authorities
suggest, what kind of fools are we, on both sides of
the water, to hesitate a moment about putting up that
£100,000,000?

Even Mr. Hyndman, the veteran socialist leader, so
I read in a recent issue of the Morning Post, endorses
the idea of a great national loan for the Navy, adding,
of course, a ryder to the effect that the money should

The Canadian Naval Question. 55

be derived from those who have plenty of it, by which
he probably means from that old British milch cow,
the Landed Class.

It is, perhaps, almost too much to expect, even from
the class to which England owes most, but yet if it
were possible for that class to voluntarily tax itself to
raise this money, such action would be a splendid
answer to those radicals who teach that our land
owners' resistance to certain taxes, comes, not from a
sense of injustice, but from parsimony.

I have digressed, and I apologize; let me get back.

The policy which has found favor with those
branches of the Navy League with which I am con-
nected in Canada, and which has been endorsed, at
any rate, from Victoria to Winnipeg, is contained in
the following resolution :

" This meeting endorses the present policy of the
Government of Canada as being the best permanent
policy for the Dominion, but recognizing that an
emergency exists, urges an immediate additional con-
tribution in dreadnaughts or cash to the Imperial
authorities, under such conditions as may be mutually
agreed upon, and further affirms that the entire naval
service of Canada should pass automatically under the
control of the Imperial authorities on the threat or
outbreak of hostilities."

Those who endorse this resolution understand that
the present policy of the Canadian Government pro-
vides for the gradual building of a Canadian unit of
the Imperial Navy in Canada, by Canadians, with
Canadian money, for service in all quarters of that
Empire of which Canada is a part, and they lay stress
upon the word " permanent," because, whilst it is felt
that to grow slowly but continuously must be better
than to " put up a lump sum and have done with it,"
it is also acknowledged that our permanent policy by
itself is manifestly inadequate to cope with an emerg-
ency.

56 The Canadian Navai, Question.

This difference between a permanent policy and one
to meet an emergency must not be lost sight of. A
Canadian navy built as we are proposing to build it,
may become a useful addition to Britain's fighting
power in the future, but would be no good at all, if the
summons to arms came next year.

Therefore it is that we have tried to prove elsewhere
that an emergency exists, and therefore we urge for
the Empire's sake, and to save Canada's honour, that
She should follow the example of New Zealand, and
make an immediate additional contribution in dread-
naughts or cash.

Let us consider for a moment what the Govern-
ment's policy is, although our sources of information
are still somewhat vague and confused.

As I understand it, when we first began seriously
to consider these matters, the record stood something
like this. The Colonies owned one-seventh of the
commerce which the British Navy protected or in-
sured; the revenue of the combined Colonies was
nearly half that of the Mother Country; the Colonies
had fifty times as much territory to guard as the
Mother Country, and towards the insurance of the
commerce and trie protection of this territory the
Colonies contributed between them, not one-seventh
of the cost, but one-ninetieth, and perhaps it would
be best for . us not to ask how much Canada con-
tributed, even to this pitiful mite.

At this point, Canadian pride revolted, and the
business men of Canada also awoke to the fact that
it was just as necessary to insure their sea-borne com-
merce as their business or lives.

As a result, certain proposals for assisting in the
naval defence of the Empire were discussed at the
Imperial Defence Conference of 1909, and, although
it may not be necessary to set out in detail these
various proposals, it may be stated generally that the
Admiralty laid down that unity of command and unity

The Canadian Naval Question. 57

of training were essential, and that the smallest fleet
which would be of any real use should consist of at
least one armoured cruiser (of the Indomitable Class),
three unarmoured cruisers, six destroyers, and three
submarines, and that of these the Indomitable must
be built first. It was estimated that such a fleet unit
would cost about $18,500,000 to build, and $3,000,-
000 a year for upkeep.

It will be observed that the- Dreadnaught was the
first essential, and unity of command a prime neces-
sity, but Canada did not see Her way to build a
Dreadnaught, and some doubt has been created as to
Her acceptance of the doctrine of unity of command.

Since, then, Canada would not accept the Admiralty's
smallest scheme which could be of " any real use "
(for fighting now?), two alternative schemes seem to
have been submitted by the Admiralty.

( 1 ) Four cruisers of the Bristol Class ; one cruiser
of the Boadicea class ; and six destroyers.

(2) Two cruisers of the Bristol Class on the Pacific,
and one Bristol and four destroyers on the Atlantic.

Whilst the ships recommended in either of these
schemes were being constructed, it was suggested that
two cruisers (Apollos) might be lent to train the
personnel, whilst docks to hold dreadnaughts might be
built on the St. Lawrence, Atlantic and Pacific.

This was in July, 1909.

Now, what have we and our poorer and less popu-
lous sister nations done since that date?

Let me deal first with Australia and New Zealand.

Of these, Australia, with a population of 4,000,000
and a revenue of $70,000,000 (I am writing in round
figures), eventually agreed to supply a Fleet unit to
consist of: One armoured cruiser (New Indomitable
Class), three unarmoured ^ruisers (Bristols), six
Destroyers (River Class), three submarines (C.
Class) ; to cost approximately $18,500,000 for build-
ing, and $3,750,000 p. a. for maintenance.

58 The; Canadian Naval Question.

In addition to this, I understand that $1,000,000
were raised by public subscription, and devoted to the
foundation of a Naval Training College and training
farms for British immigrants.

New Zealand, with a population of less than 1,000,-
000, and a revenue of $45,000,000, at first offered " to
bear the cost of immediate building and arming by the
British Government of one first-class battleship of the
latest type. If subsequent events show it to be neces-
sary, will also bear cost of second warship of the same

type."

The latest apparently reliable information which I
have is contained in the following paragraph from the
Navy League Journal, June, 1910: "By the end of
next year the Australian and New Zealand units, each
consisting of thirteen modern ships with a Dread-
naught at the head, will be ready to leave for the
Antipodes."

Of course, some of them have already left.

Now, let us consider what Canada, with a population
of 8,000,000 and a revenue of $96,000,000, has done,
and, in order to avoid any suspicion of party bias, I
propose to show Sir Wilfrid Laurier's policy as it
was understood by a great English Weekly which no
sane man would accuse of prejudice against the party
in power at Ottawa.

The English Spectator of January 15th, 1910, writ-
ing of the introduction of the Bill for creating a Cana-
dian navy, dwelt with enthusiasm upon the indivisi-
bility of Empire, and quoted with approval that clause
in the Bill which provides that " in case of emergency,
the Governor-in-Council may place at the disposal of
His Majesty for general service in the Royal Navy,
the naval service (of Canada), or any part thereof, "
and Sir Wilfrid Laurier's explanation that " an
emergency means war anywhere in which Great
Britain is engaged. If Great Britain is at war, Canada
is at war, and is immediately liable to invasion."

The Canadian Naval Question. 59

The Spectator then went on to define the Canadian
Government's naval policy as providing four ships of
the Bristol Class, one of the Boadicea type, and six
destroyers, to be divided between the Atlantic and the
Pacific.

The cost to Canada, it was assumed, would be about
£2,338,000 if the ships were built in England, or about
twenty-two per cent, more if the ships were built in
Canada.

A naval college on the lines of the Military College
at Kingston was also a part of the scheme, and
(though this was not mentioned in the Spectator), it
was reported on the West Coast that a visiting mem-
ber of the Cabinet, Mr. Pugsley, had said that the
Government would see the necessity of building large
drydocks on the Atlantic and Pacific, capable of
accommodating the largest warship.

This programme, as a whole, though it did not come
quite up to the minimum suggested by the British
Admiralty, and made no provision to meet an emerg-
ency, had in it much to recommend it to our people.

The idea of a Canadian unit of the Imperial Navy
to be built and manned by us, especially caught
Canada's fancy.

No one, we argued, takes as much interest in an
article which he buys ready made, as he does in one
he makes himself, even though the one he makes is
inferior to the one he buys.

Therefore, Canada will take more interest in the
fleet which her own men build, than in one which other
men build for her.

There is (we said) a certain amount of employment
and profit for the working classes, in the building of
ships, and if anyone is to have that employment and
make that profit, it should be those who provide the
money for the building.

If it is true that for some of the skilled work we
shall be obliged to import skilled mechanics, we are

60 The Canadian Navai, Question.

quite content to do so, because we want men in this
country more than we want anything else, and especi-
ally skilled men of our own breed.

Even if at first it should cost us more to build a
ship in Canada than it would cost us to get a better
one built for us in England, we are content to pay the
extra price for the benefits already referred to, and
for the establishment in Canada of the important
industry of ship building.

Besides all this, we thought that we saw in the
Laurier policy of building ships in Canada some very
manifest advantages for the Empire.

If carried out, it should create a national naval
spirit, which is the only permanent basis of naval
power; it should engender a spirit of emulation
between the different dominions which could only
inure to the advantage of the Empire ; it would ensure
the establishment and protection of Coaling Stations
and repair shops, and the creation of building slips,
which are, after all, as important as dreadnaughts.

On the other hand, this programme was admittedly
something less than the least of the Admiralty's sug-
gestions, and (a sore point with us), less than the
contributions of our younger, poorer and less populous
sister nations.

But what we have actually done so far, seems to be
nothing more than this:

We have purchased one old, first-class cruiser, the
" Niobe," the original cost price of which was, long
ago, £535,603, and one third-class cruiser, the " Rain-
bow," the original cost of which was, a much longer
time ago, £185,094.

I have seen newspaper reports of ships which we
had ordered, or which we contemplated ordering, but
these reports were unconfirmed, and I submit that,
though these two old boats may be, and no doubt are,
excellent as training ships, they are of no particular
value as an addition to that Pacific Fleet for which

The Canadian Naval Question. 6i

our younger sister nations are providing such useful
units.

At that I leave it. It is not my business as a loyal
subject of the Crown to ridicule the beginnings of our
infant navy, but, having, as I believe, good warrant
for maintaining that a crisis in the affairs of Britain
is approaching, it is my duty to point out that unless
that crisis is postponed for twenty years, the aid
offered by Canada will not be of very material value
in the fighting line, and, therefore, it is reasonable for
every Canadian who has the Empire's safety or
Canada's honour at heart to press upon his political
representative for such an immediate additional aid
as will enable us to take such a place in the present as
we all of us aspire to in the future.

Our scheme of building a national navy for our-
selves is excellent as a permanent policy, but think
what it means if time is really of the essence of our
contract.

The Government, we are told, will avoid all unneces-
sary delay. No doubt it will, but there are the sites
for the building yards to be chosen, and it will take
some time and a good deal of political ingenuity to
decide between the rival claims of Montreal, Halifax,
St. Johns (perhaps), Victoria, and Vancouver, to
become the sites for the building yards.

It will take time, a year perhaps, to equip the yards
to build the ships, and then there are the ships to be
built.

Even if the sites are decided upon in a year, if the
yards are equipped in another year, if the ships are
successfully completed at the first essay in two more
years, it will be 1914 before we are ready to render
any real assistance to the Empire, and those who
should know point to 1913 as the year of our peril.

The final clause in the resolution quoted deals with
indivisibility of control, a subject about which there

62 The Canadian Naval Question.

may be some apparent confusion at present, but about
which there can be no dispute upon closer examination.

We are either British, or we are not. These
addresses are written for Britons. I know nothing of
any other people in Canada. I have never met any
others.

If we are British, the Empire's wars are our wars.
If we are not ready to fight at the call of the Empire,
then we are not British. As Britons, we are, of course,
liable to attack from those who are at war with our
Empire, and the mere words of our Parliament would
not save us. Moreover, all our power to legislate,
whether upon the use of our fleet or any other subject,
was conferred upon us by an Imperial enactment of
the Mother Country, and the power which passed the
North America Act could, I suppose, repeal it.

The point has been ably argued by Mr. Northrup,
M.P., in his speech of March ioth, 1910, but it is of
comparatively small importance. That which counts,
is the will of the People of Canada. They let their
politicians talk. That is what they keep them for.
In the time of need, the People will act, and in that
time they will not question whether Britain is wrong
or right, but at the first flap of Her old flag they'll
fight.

That, we know, is the only way in which men can
know anything — from the lessons of experience.

But, however certain we may be ourselves of the
Nation's action when the time of trial comes, it
behooves us to remember that others cannot be
expected to decide accurately which public utterances
are merely political and which national, and to remem-
ber that Britain and Britain's enemies realize quite
clearly that a fleet which is not immediately available
in case of need, one which can only be relied upon if
party politicians allow its use, is not only valueless to
a commander, but is a real source of danger to him
as tempting him to miscalculate his strength.

The Canadian Naval Question. 63

The whole trend of public opinion in the other
dominions appears to have been in favour of unity
of command and complete interchangeability. They
want " one great Imperial Navy with all the overseas
Dominion contributing either ships or money." This
is what we want.

One last argument. If you enter your boys, as I
hope you will, in this Canadian Navy, think of the
difference it will make to them whether this Navy is
separate or an integral part of one Great Whole.

If it is separate, it will never be large enough in their
lifetime to offer them a career wide enough for their
ambition, but if it be an indivisible, interchangeable
portion of the great British Navy, before them will lie
a matchless career, with, as the prize of it, the position
of the Supreme Sea Captain of the World's greatest
sea power.

POSTSCRIPT

This postscript is written principally for the people
of British Columbia.

The subject of it is of importance to Britain as a
whole, and to Canada as a Dominion ; to British
Columbia, it is of supreme importance.

In every town which I visited during my Eastern
tour, I was met by some such remarks as these:

" You are overlooking the real difficulty. We can
get the ships whenever we choose to pay for them, but
we cannot man them, unless we bring men out from
the Old Country, and those, if we bring them, we shall
not be able to keep as sailors. When the ordinary
wages of able-bodied men on the Pacific Coast run
from $2.50 to $3.00 a day, how can you expect to get
men as seamen at something like 60 cents a day?"

Here a sailor man, with twenty years' experience,
broke in: —

64 The Canadian Naval Question.

" You can't do it. We could not do it in the East,
and we had a better chance than you. From Cape
Canso to Shelburn, the people are all fishermen, good
men, good sailors, and yet when I wanted men for
the survey boat, I could not get them.

" It was the same with that fishery protection cruiser,
the ' Canada/ though she paid a little more for her
men.

" Men ! I tell you that since the industrial develop-
ment took place in Eastern Canada, I have seen whole
fleets of fishing boats on the Nova Scotian Coast, lying
idle because they could not get crews.

" We always paid the current rates of the ports we
were in for our men, and when I first went there, I
paid $14.00 a month and 'all found/ That was in
1891.

" In 1903, I had to pay from $24.00 to $30.00 a
month and all found, and even then had to go to New-
foundland to get my crew.

" Sailoring is not a sufficiently well paid job to tempt
men much in a new country. It is not because the life
is a hard one. It isn't. The bluejacket has a good
time, and is extremely well looked after. If he only
gets about one shilling and eightpence a day at home,
he can double that by qualifying in gunnery, torpedo
work, or signalling; he gets a good pension whilst he
is still young enough to secure a well-paid job ashore,
but the average Canadian does not know this, and if
he did, it would not look very attractive to him, com-
pared to $3.00 a day and personal freedom."

The experience of the sister service in British
Columbia seems to corroborate these statements.
Everyone has heard of the difficulty we have found
in obtaining recruits, and, although we have not yet
heard any complaint from our new training ship, we
shall be very much relieved if we find that the " Rain-
bow " can get all the men she wants.

It is not, at any rate, going too far to suggest, that

The Canadian Navai, Question. 65

Britain wants sailors more than She wants anything
else, and that the raw material from which sailors are
made is not easily procurable on this Coast.

In this connection, it is to be remembered that
Britain has in all Her wars depended a great deal
upon what people call the personal equation; that she
expects to atone for Her want of quantity by the
quality of that which She has, and that if this is so,
any raw material is not good enough for the making
of Britain's bluejackets.

It is true that Germany draws seventy per cent, of
Her sailors from rural and urban districts far from
sight or sound of the sea, but in spite of two and a
half years of education at high pressure, She does not
succeed in producing anything better than a highly
drilled yokel in a sea kit.

This is not the same thing as a British Tar, and the
fortune of our future may just turn on this fact.

Even a dreadnaught without a full and efficient
crew, would be a mere mass of dead iron, and a crew
chokeful of initiative and courage would be almost
useless without discipline and seamanship.

We must have the best material for the making of
our bluejackets, and we must be able to keep them
long enough to make them perfect.

There is one very hopeful condition in our environ-
ment.

Fishermen make the best sailors, and the natural
industry of this Coast is fishing.

Glance at the Reports of the Marine and Fisheries
Department. There you will find that the two great
fishing Provinces of Canada are Nova Scotia and Brit-
ish Columbia, and that, although Nova Scotia has been
in the fishing business for three hundred years, whereas
British Columbia has hardly been in existence as a
Province for one-sixth of that time; although British
Columbia barely employs one man to Nova Scotia's
three, the younger Province runs the older one a very

66 The Canadian Naval Question.

close race for first place as a fish producer, and in one
year (1905) beat the older Province by $1,500,000.

If you will look a little more closely into these
Reports, you will see that even the few men we do
employ are mostly employed in catching salmon about
our river mouths, and that, though the waters about
our northern coasts are almost fabulously rich in fish,
we are only employing enough men in our deep sea
fisheries to show how great a return we might win
from them if we would.

I said that we are only employing about one man in
our fisheries to every three men employed by Nova
Scotia. I might add that we are not employing one
man for every ten who could find profitable employ-
ment if our fishing business were fully organized.

There is a Japanese fishing village at Steveston, but
where are the white fishing hamlets on our coast to
correspond to those of the English or Nova Scotian
shores?

It is from these that our bluejackets come.

That great authority upon the fishing industry, Sir
George Doughty, was out here this year, and found
that " all kinds of fish abound in British Columbia's
waters, but," he adds, " I am sorry to see that they are
almost absolutely neglected. It is pitiable to see these
fisheries in the condition they are. Yellow labour
seems likely to dominate the situation. Colonies of
white fishermen should be established on the Coast,
which should not only carry on the industry, but con-
trol it. When the Grand Trunk Pacific gets its line
through to the Coast, it will offer means of transpor-
tation, etc."

There is the whole story in a nutshell. Britain
wants sailors; the men who fish in the deep seas are
the best material for the making of sailors; the deep
seas of British Columbia are teeming with fish, and
Prince Rupert in a few years will be the natural port
of the deep sea fleets, the shipping point for the fish

The Canadian Naval Question. 67

food with which we shall feed the prairies and even
Asia, but we have not the men here to fish those deep
seas, and if we are not very careful the yellow men
will monopolize our deep sea fisheries, and drive us
off our own halibut banks, as they have already been
allowed to drive the white men off the Fraser. That
which should have been a small nursery for British
sailors, has become an exercising ground for Japanese
boatmen, and, already, it is very doubtful if anvone
knows our Coast waters as well as our Japanese allies.
As long as they are allies, perhaps that does not
matter, but alliances are not for ever. "The only
thoroughly healthy state," let me repeat Bismarck's
maxim, " is a thorouehly selfish one," and if you
glance at Mr. Satori Kato's article upon the Mastery
of the Pacific, you will see that he quite realizes that
it would be a blunder to expect that, under all circum-
stances, " the allied two States could for ever mutually
agree," whilst if you glance at some recent American
publications, or intelligently at the facts around you,
you will realize that the position already attained by
the Japanese in relation to this Coast is at least as
strong as it is safe for it to be.

Remember, that one of Nature's laws is that a
vacuum must be filled; remember that we have about
one man to a mile of thd best land on earth; remem-
ber that the Japanese are a very crowded people, a
race of fishermen and fruit growers, to whom British
Columbia offers an ideal opening.

They are a seafaring race, these Japs ; they are a
militant, expanding people. They may not have con-
tributed so much to the conquest of Russia, as Russia's
own mistakes did, and they may be suffering from
seriously swollen heads which will yet get them into
trouble, but they are dangerously elated, and they are
curiously persistent in the way in which they are
intruding themselves into this Western country on
both sides of the line.

68 The Canadian Naval Question.

I cannot be absolutely sure of my facts, but I have
fair warrant for saying that Hawaii is now a Tapanese
base; that it has been peacefully conquered by the
Tapanese ; that there are at least six or seven Tapanese
in Hawaii fqr every European there; that they own
some 60,000 acres of the best fruit land of California ;
that they dominate the fruit growing of one district,
the peach growing of another, and the rice farming
of Texas, whilst in British Columbia there are at least
from 9,000 to 10,000 Japanese men, scattered amongst
our sparse white population, and these men are of
fighting a?e, fresh from a victorious war, drilled,
trained and armed.

Ask anv competent soldier what he could do with
10,000 well trained fighting men in such a country as
ours, with such a fleet as Japan controls to support
him.

Alreadv, the Japanese have driven our fisher folk
from the Eraser ; they have beaten our Coast fishermen
at their own trade ; they have got a great deal of the
boat building into their hands, and they are mining
in a very large and independent way along our Coasts.

In every direction, they are intruding dangerously.

Can we afford to let them get control of our deep
sea fishing, to the exclusion of those white men upon
whom our future as a nation depends?

As they have done in other trades, they will do in
the deep sea fishing. They will work for less than
the white man until they have drawn the business into
their hands. Then they will raise their prices, having
killed competition.

It seems to me, that the deep sea fishing industry, of
which in a few years' time Prince Rupert will be
the centre, is the most important matter now upon
our horizon, because it will be, if properly handled,
not only an enormous source of wealth to us, but a
nursery for those sailors without whom Ships are
useless.

The Canadian Naval Question. 69

But to be any good to us, we must take active steps
to secure our own fish for our own people, and the
industry for those who can if necessary man our fleets.

That is the point to which I have been working. We
want the waters of British Columbia as a nursery
for British sailors; we don't want them to be turned
into a place of exercise for our present allies, who may
possibly become our foes in the future.

To secure these desirable conditions, prompt action
is necessary.

It is known that practically unlimited British Capital
is ready for use in the development of this deep sea
fishing business, and that to be successful the industry
must be founded upon a very broad base.

We have to do more than catch the fish. We have
to provide for their handling, curing, transportation
and marketing, and all this upon such a scale as only
the strongest Capitalists could attempt.

But we are assured that the money can be had, if
satisfactory arrangements can be made with the
Dominion and Provincial Governments. What these
are, subsidies in land or cash, or exemptions of any
kind, I do not know, but, bearing in mind British
Columbia's readiness to bonus anything in the way of
a manufacturing industry, from an American peanut
stand upwards, I would plead for the utmost
generosity towards those who will found British
Columbia's natural industry upon a firm basis, pro-
vided that such laws be enforced as would make it
possible only for those eligible for service in His
Majesty's Navy, to engage in our deep sea fishery.
That need give offence to no one, and, if a Jap does
not happen to be big enough to make a bluejacket, is
that our fault?

Our Premier has shown himself a strong friend of
the working man, in the resolute stand he has made
against Oriental labour, although his position has been
made exceedingly difficult by the impossibility of

70 The Canadian Naval Question.

obtaining white domestic labour for our new settlers
and fruit growers.

We can, I think, trust him to protect our fishing
grounds and keep British Columbia's most important
industry for those who may sooner or later be called
upon to protect them for us, and he, in turn, may
rely upon the support of a united people already
strongly attached to him.

Domestic labour is not congenial to the white people
of the West; deep sea fishing is.